interesting far fetched article from cnn.com on a possible, virtual/digital future of fashion

Quote:

Virtual tattoos, electronically activated make-up and digital bathroom mirrors are just some of the gadgets that could become commonplace in the fashion world of the future.

BT futurologist Ian Pearson, who is speaking at the London College of Fashion this month about the potential for "interrogating fashions," told CNN that technology was beginning to interact with the fashion world.

He said in a few years time, people would appear one way in the physical world and have a whole range of digital appearances in the "augmented reality" and virtual worlds, which would become a huge growth area for fashion.

"These new worlds will need to be designed, and fashion will play a similar role to that in the real world," Pearson said.

"At the moment you choose which clothes you want to wear and you look the same to everyone. But there's some people out there for whom you would like them to see you in a different way. You will be able present yourself in different ways to different people using this digital fashion concept."

He said "digital bathroom mirrors" would enable people to program how they wanted to look.

Whether appearing online, playing a multi-player online role-playing game, or in someone's heads-up display, people would be able to customize how they wanted to look, Pearson said.

Electronically activated make-up would change throughout the day, depending on your mood and the circumstances.

"You'd use a digital bathroom mirror and you'd just cursor through a whole stack of different options."

"It can change all the way through the day -- it can even pick up your emotions in that timeframe -- because that's one of the things you can measure electronically.

"Whether you're feeling relaxed or whether you're feeling stressed your make-up will be able to respond to that so you can have completely responsive make-up as part of your future fashion kit."

Skin will also be a fashion accessory in future, Pearson said.

"At the moment you can get tattoos and people do, but we're thinking it's not really a good time to get a tattoo -- if you wait five or six years you can get video tattoos, which will be removable."

He said emotionally responsive jewelry and clothes was also likely, whereby what we wear could monitor our state of well being and react accordingly.

Although some ideas sounded futuristic and a long way off, Pearson believed they would become a reality.

"The technology will be available. Whether they actually make it or not comes down to whether the people who are capable of making these things believe the market is big enough," he said.

"It's always guess work but if you look at something like digital make-up, all the women I talk to about it think, 'Wow, when we can get it?'" he said.

great article thanks for posting it
i've been dong alot of research into technology and fashion with new tecnological fibres and technology intergrated into outfits. so this seem very possible but sometime far into the future.

i think its very possible in the future that fashion and technology will go hand in hand.

Just another academic trying to impress the open-mouthed kids at college with how cool he is . Weren't we ready for this in the 50's, with all the formica furniture and silly futuristic architecture that was nothing more but a fantasy in bad taste?

Warmth, Music, and Conversation
This September, Levi Strauss will start selling the ICD+ line of jackets in Europe. Designed and built in collaboration with Philips Electronics, the four jackets will come with integrated MP3 players and cell phones. The jackets will sell for $600 and up--you can buy a cell phone, a portable MP3 player, and a jacket for a lot less than that.

What makes an ICD+ better than three separate pieces? Integration. The phone and player work together; get a call while you're listening to music, and Beethoven stops so you can carry on a conversation. The earphones and microphone are built into the collar. A single unified "remote" controls everything.

All these pieces can be unplugged and removed from the jacket, and the phone and player can be used separately. In fact, you'll have to remove the gizmos before washing the jacket, although Levi Strauss assures us that the wiring inside the jacket can withstand the rigors of a washing machine.

Initially, the ICD+ jackets will be available only in Europe. Versions for North America and Asia are under consideration. The companies are also considering more advanced versions, including Internet devices and perhaps full computers.

Meanwhile, IBM has developed a prototype of what it calls the IBM Wearable PC. Not so much a piece of clothing as an accessory, the Wearable PC comes with a processing unit that clips onto your belt and a tiny monitor that hangs from a headband about an inch from your eye (and you thought people driving with cell phones was dangerous). You'll manage input to this computer by voice or some sort of pointing device. (See "Wearable PCs Offer Function, Not Fashion.")

IBM doesn't have immediate plans for turning this prototype into a sellable product. Instead, Big Blue has licensed much of the technology to Xybernaut, a company that is already selling wearable computers.
Hefty Price Tag
Yes, someone's already selling this stuff. At this point, Xybernaut aims its wares at the people who need it most--knowledge professionals who need technical expertise but can't spend their workday sitting at desks, such as technical inspectors and maintenance workers. If nothing else, the current $5000 to $6000 price range keeps Xybernaut's computers out of the hands of most users.Xybernaut hopes to halve that price with its next generation of wearables (the ones with the IBM technology), appealing to a professional "near consumer" market in one to two years, and a consumer market after that.

A Stitch in Time
Before wearable computers become popular, they not only must get smaller, cheaper, and more powerful, but also more flexible. According to Maggie Orth, a Ph.D. candidate at MIT, much of the technology will have to change before computers can take the sort of bending and twisting that clothes are designed for. "Today, connectors are the first things to fall apart," she says. Orth is working on, among other things, conductive thread through which you can pass an electronic signal.

And, of course, there's social acceptance. Will people wearing computers just look too silly to be taken seriously? IBM Vice President Peter Hortensius doesn't think so. "Fifteen years ago no one thought that people would wear headphones and sing to themselves while jogging."

MIT's Orth thinks that acceptance will require a new paradigm, from practicality to play. "Computers are focused on making us better businessmen, helping us do our taxes, rather than having more fun. We'll have to create a computing fashion."

not exactly virtual make-up but technology woven into garments and fabrics to make life easier!

Just another academic trying to impress the open-mouthed kids at college with how cool he is . Weren't we ready for this in the 50's, with all the formica furniture and silly futuristic architecture that was nothing more but a fantasy in bad taste?

Thats exactly what I was thinking.

He's caught up in this futuristic fantasy, and loves getting reaction from the college set. Everything in the future sounds "far out" ...even things less freakish. And thats what this is, freakishly bad taste.

i think the overall concept of technology integrated w/ fashion/ design isn't too far off..maybe 10-20 years. but it won't be a mass market thing..as with many advances in technology they will be used for the military, and other areas that actually need this..and then it will filter down...also the idea of a world filled with computer chips in clothing will be much more subtle. the 60s had this stylized version of the future..but it was wayy off track..i think skin being in is really on target. this aesthetic of slick futuristic design will not be the rage in years..it has to be integrated and practical therefore it should be almost invisible..biological. this also refers to nanotechnology.microscopic computers that have been researched a years now..and it is expected that or world will somehow adopt this in everything from food, clothing, shoes etc in years to come. as far as the clothing changing its appearance..they already have sketch pads that is similar to etch a sketches, but more advanced, you can wipe it clean..using over and over again without wasting paper...this is a pretty simpe and lo-tech..and it could be applied to clothing, jewelry and tattoos. for instance, you could want a certain pattern on your shoes one day..and that be able to change that pattern and start new. i think that will also change the way consumers buy things..if the clothing can be reused and reused over and over again..also i think there will be a trend in looking at exisiting systems such as plants, animals--biomimicry to inform us of these integrated technologies. for instance, i read an article about scientists looking at a lotus flower, which has a natural cleaning mechanism..scientists are using this information to come up surfaces of paint, roof tiles to self-clean..this can also be applied ot garments and in another form has been applied to garments.
here's a link to a discussion about this http://www.unexplained-mysteries.com...hp/t35964.html

a good magazine/ website to look at is Wired magazine..its not dry at all..its endlessly interesting and it talks about technology applied to all sorts of areas--special effects in movies, surveillance cameras, future predictions etc..

also NPR--national public radio for those who aren't stateside--recently said the MFA is the new MBA. There is a trend in the states that sciences areas such as engineering etc..are being passed up for the humanities, and this has created a backlash in that all the jobs are being relocated overseas in asia. i think this is probably due to the glamourization of the design/ art world in movies, and also this philosophy that changing jobs in inevitable, so you wouldn't go cement yourself in one line of study and go to school for years and years. i think in regards to fashion, biologists, engineers etc, will be needed in the application to the arts. as an example, issey miyake is paving the way for future design..and he is basically starting from the fabric.the technology to create the fashion--the aesthetic by consulting w/ people who are outside of the fashion industry..but he realizes it isn't practical keep adding designer after designer and hiking up the prices of clothing..it isn't the best design tactic. so i believe fashion will be heavily influenced in the future, and it will go beyond synthetic fabrics..but amazing advances in production..we are already seeing this concern in such companies as American Apparel and free-trade...i mentioned in another thread you can grow something that is the equivlanet of leather..and it actually is good for the environment.
all these ethical clashes will shift..probably into new ethical clashes..but in the end fashion will definately have to evolve.

I don't think it's that farfetched to say that some of our children's children's children (blah blah... say a couple to few hundred years down the line at the outside) may choose gene expression as fashion. I see a day when someone's going to want (and get) feathers, a tail, a pretty lizard-scale dino crest, etc.

no wonder there is such a race to patent everything, including DNA - if yu can't make money on mass (macro) production, you make money on the individual elements right?

i mean, if you can use the nano-technology inside your shoe to change its design or shape even, erasing it like an etch-a-sketch (c), shaping it like silly putty(c), then i imagine everyone will get the same shoe prototype, like a blank slate, in which case we all become our own designers. but someone is still going to want to be making money off of this - so there must be some planned obsolescence somewhere. well,i guess everything wears out....

personally i love the idea of shape shifting, but i suppose the big money will be in the nanobytes or genetic info itself, right? like microsoft (c) and their programs. people will have to come together and make "dior-compatible" or "miyake-platform" clothing, and the indepedents scratching away as always. and no doubt some rogues will be out hacking people's underwear....

this is all new to me, but the more i read the thread the more interesting it becomes, because you are questioning the function of clothing, looking at it from different angles by projecting into the future. great thread, i'm looking forward to hearing more.

give me a f***ing break..
then some of us would have to tolerate a collective with perhaps some serious lack of originality and art that the digital world could create out of this due to its convenience. I love digital, but full-on digital makeup without the touch of a brush??? I can't consider that art.